Tampa, Fla. – (September 25, 2017) – Hillsborough County Public Schools will convert four Early Release Days into regular school days, beginning October 23, to make up for missed classroom time due to Hurricane Irma.

Instead of dismissing an hour early, school will dismiss at its normal time on the following dates: Monday, October 23, October 30, November 6 and November 13. This change will allow students at all grade levels to meet the state’s requirements for time spent in class during the first semester.

The district sent a survey directed to employees last week asking for feedback. The most popular option by far in the survey - 78% of respondents - said their preferred option to make up for missed time is changing early release days.

Even though seven school days were missed due to the hurricane, Hillsborough County Public Schools builds additional instructional time into its calendar each year. This extra time allows our district to use these four early release days to make-up the state-required time.

The district’s leadership recognizes that Early Release Days provide valuable planning time for teachers, so this option was coordinated with the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association, to make sure it would preserve other teacher work days and vacation days, while also allowing our students to get the class time they need.

Some of our elementary schools are Extra Reading Time (ERT) schools. Those schools will have a separate schedule change, which will be shared in a message sent to those schools.